20SomethingMom chronicles of a young mom

Absence Makes the Baby Grow CuterPosted by admin on September 28th, 2009

As a newly single mom, I don’t get too many hours away from my son.  I do everything from working to grocery shopping to showering with him by my side (more often, climbing on me).  Although the days are punctuated with plenty of kisses and exciting new vocabulary, my threshold for one-year-old gimmicks is significantly lower than it used to be.  On an average day, I am over it by 10 AM — after a few broken things, a leaking diaper or two, and at least half an hour of shrieking for no reason.

I have tried every method there is to entertain and exhaust my child, and calm myself.  We go on a daily run, ride trucks up and down the sidewalk, swim in the pool, and chase the dog.  Still, my sanity factor is directly proportional to the amount of time for which he closes his eyes in the afternoon and how much coffee I have been able to consume at the ideal temperature and with as little spillage as possible.  There is no better method for relaxing us both than leaving him in someone else’s care for a short time.

My parents have been great about recognizing when I’m about to explode and seizing the opportunity to bond with their grandson.  My dad has taken him to the beach and the park so that I can make progress on grad school applications, and my mom is here every day for bath time, bed time, and tantrum time.  I am struggling to strike a balance between allowing myself to go through the tough moments with no help and leaning too heavily on those who are willing to take over.  

Any parent will tell you how important it is to establish boundaries and create a healthy, respectful relationship with your toddler.  I need to experience it all and have the space to follow my instincts.  There are frequent moments, though, when I wonder if my lack of patience erases that possibility and if it may be better for both of us if someone with a greater patience supply steps in.  Grandparents certainly have an abundance of patience with their grandchildren, if not sympathy for their children.   

The most astounding thing about leaving my son for awhile is how instantaneous the stress relief can be, and how quickly the stress can return.  Parenting is often about swinging from one extreme to another: overwhelming love to impossible frustration.  When I escape (go to Starbucks) for a couple hours, I miss my baby and wonder what he’s doing every second.  Then, I come home and get a great big hug followed by a leech-like creature stuck to my legs…and I start looking forward to my next break.

I’m interested to see how these feelings evolve over time as my son and our relationship mature.  I know that you never stop being a parent, worrying like a parent, but physical separation has to be different in the early years.  I have spent so few days away from my son in 21 months (plus the 8 months of pregnancy) that it’s like ripping off a Band-Aid every time I leave him.  It hurts, I have to do it quickly or risk bursting into tears, and I get to cover my wound again when I have him back in my arms.

Technorati Tags: baby, motherhood, parenting, separation anxiety, single parent, toddler

Applying to Grad School the Mommy WayPosted by admin on September 16th, 2009

Last May, when I graduated from Rollins, I swore I was done with school.  Done for good.  I was so relieved to be finished with two decades of learning on someone else’s terms, and was ready to teach myself a few things.  

A huge part of my academic exhaustion was generated by the then-4-month-old in my arms.  School mattered to me enough to finish my degree, but he mattered more.  

Now, after a little over a year of working from home as a tutor and mom, I feel ready to revisit the things I love most: reading, writing, researching, teaching, and traveling.  I’m in the process of applying to Ph.D. programs in Political Science so that I can ultimately become a professor and enjoy doing all of these things for a long time.  

Given that the most computer time I can manage in a toddler-filled day is a few minutes for an email/facebook check, this process is not going to be particularly quick.  I am anxious and excited about the potential for an exciting grad school experience in an exciting city, but the applications (due in December) are intense.  My biggest frustration with mommyhood used to be that I didn’t have time to finish a book.  Now, it’s that I can’t write more than a sentence at a time, much less a coherent statement of purpose (or a blog post).  And I have four of them to write.  It is practically a grad student hopeful’s sin to put all my eggs in only four baskets, but I simply don’t have time to expand my list and devote myself to each and every application in the way I feel is necessary.

I’m considering this balancing act practice for my days in school, when I’ll have far more work than just a few essays in a few months.  I’ll also have more support.  Contrasted with other careers, academia is relatively family-friendly.  The most appealing thing about it to me is the schedule, or lack thereof.  I would much rather attend or teach a few classes per week and do the rest of my work at whatever hour, and in whatever place, I choose than clock in and slave away on someone else’s terms.  Add in conferences, research abroad, and built-in vacation time, and it’s truly the dream job that I never recognized as such.  There are certainly less-than-fun professorial obligations (think faculty meetings and advising), but the potential rewards far outweigh the annoyances.  

Grad students and professors alike get pretty spectacular benefits and options for childcare, which is one expense I struggle with now.  Subsidized high-quality preschool programs are the norm.  If I were to enroll next fall, my son would be 2 1/2, and more than ready to be introduced to baby academic life.   

Should I fall into that slim group of accepted students, I will dive into the 5-to-7-year commitment with vigor, and have no doubt that I’ll emerge with an even greater understanding of the things I want out of life.  I used to laugh at perpetual students — those who just can’t seem to earn enough degrees to be satisfied.  I understand it, though; school is work that inspires and facilitates lifelong achievement and connections.  People working in universities make the world move, and then they get to stand back and observe it.  What could be better than engaging in intellectual experimentation and sharing it with fellow inquisitives?  

When I submit my applications in a few months to UC-Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, and NYU, my fate will be in the hands of the graduate school directors and political scientists who happen to work for the respective departments this academic year.  It could be just the right handful of people to relate to my research interests and positively evaluate my GPA and GRE scores…or not.  Admission into top graduate programs often seems random, and is most certainly a more difficult game than undergraduate admissions.  Both the best and worst part is that I am now so invested in the idea of earning a doctorate in political theory that I cannot see any other alternative.  This drive is an asset, unless I am forced by mere chance or deliberate decision to find an alternative.  

So, all that’s left to do is read, read, read, write, write, write, and hope, hope, hope.

As difficult as it is to stay focused on any of those tasks and keep a child out of the dog bowl or the pantry all day, being a mom makes the aspirations just as important as the outcome.  Nonetheless, wish me luck.

Technorati Tags: academia, Columbia, Cornell, grad school, graduate admissions, motherhood, NYU, PhD, political science, political theory, professor, Rollins, time management, UC-Berkeley

Our President’s Message: Nothing NewPosted by admin on September 9th, 2009

I love our Prez as much as the next Democrat, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed by his long-awaited speech to schoolchildren yesterday morning.  As a student of political science, I heard too many trite phrases to be impressed with his message.  While Obama is himself a case for the value of an education, I am saddened by his lack of courage (or political pugnacity) when it comes to disclosing the reality of his hardships to our youth.  

While the theme of his speech was personal responsibility, his line of reasoning was filled with played-out patriotism:

“…And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. The future of America depends on you. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future…”

I can appreciate where this is coming from: a genuine place of concern for progeny, a presidential need to inspire the downtrodden and better the best, and a father’s didactic heart.  Obama did reach out to kids who are struggling in school by saying that he had been there –sharing the well-known anecdote about his early morning lessons with his mother.  Still, he shirked his own personal responsibility by placing all the blame for less-than-desirable circumstances squarely in the kids’ laps.  

When did the man running our country –the black icon — decide to start mimicking the aging, conservative, white men he succeeded?  This “do it for your country” mentality is like parental bribery.  It doesn’t give a child someone to look up to, but makes him feel like even less of a true American if he can’t yank his bootstraps up quite far enough to permanently change the course of his life.

“But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.”

I think there are plenty of excuses — legitimate ones.  But the very fact that we call happenstance an “excuse” means we indoctrinate our youth too quickly with an awareness of just how large a cloud of failure can surround a person in this world in which we must always be movin’ on up.  Tell the kids it’s their problem, and it will never be ours.  It’s worked so far, and it’s the easiest philosophy to adapt in times of swaying ideology.

In true Obama fashion, the speech included a variety of historical and personal references.  After listing a few examples of famous people who have endured hardship, he said:

“These people succeeded because they understood that you can’t let your failures define you — you have to let your failures teach you.”

Good point, if it weren’t followed by this:

“And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you, don’t ever give up on yourself, because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

“The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.”

Having worked with children of all ages in an educational context for quite a few years, I understand that what they need more than anything is context.  Context should ultimately factor in a broad sense of purpose, but that purpose should focus on the intersection between the self and the cause.  A country is not a cause, but it is full of them.  Kids need to see how their math homework will prepare them for reaching their immediate goals and confronting those amorphous long-term effects of today’s decisions.  Guilt is not inspiration, and President Obama poured on the guilt.

I have no doubt that it was partially a result of the pressure to rid his speech of “socialist” ideas that its message became obviously directed toward the patriotic duty inherent in compulsory education.  Part of me is angry at his cowardly critics for pushing him into oversimplification, and the other part wishes that Obama the Politician would show us more of Obama the Man.  Obama the Man knows that hard work is not the only factor in worldly success.  Although he has achieved the kind of success we are all taught to admire, there are layers to him and his experience that, with adequate exposure, could redefine success for the next generation.

Technorati Tags: America, education, education speech, Obama, patriotism, Politics, president, race, responsibility, school, success